More Water

Small pits in a large crater on the Moon’s North Pole could be “skylights” leading down to an underground network of lava tubes – tubes holding hidden water on Earth’s nearest neighbour, according to new research.

There’s no lava in them now of course, though that’s originally how the tubes formed in the Moon’s fiery past. But they could indicate easy access to a water source if we ever decide to develop a Moon base sometime in the future.

Despite the Moon’s dry and dusty appearance, scientists think it contains a lot of water trapped as frozen ice. What these new observations carried out by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) show is that it might be much more accessible than we thought.

ASIDE: “There’s no lava in them now of course, though that’s originally how the tubes formed in the Moon’s fiery past. Jeez. Think of the sort of individual who needs to be told that. And then remember that his/her vote counts as much as yours does. Just thought I would brighten up your day a bit.

So why is this noteworthy? Well, having some of these tubes at the surface makes finding and accessing them a lot easier than digging. And with them right there at the surface makes setting up a solar-powered machine that can break the water down to its’ components easier. (For those who needed the explanation about the lava tubes: water is made up of hydrogen (fuel/heating) and oxygen (breathing stuff). I wish this bit of sarcasm didn’t have some roots in reality.)

And the best part? Once again, the Prophet was right.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 13th, 2018 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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